Gérald GentaWas born in 1931 to an Italian father and a Swiss mother. From a very young age, he showed a real talent for drawing and painting. From the age of 7 he began to paint landscapes of Switzerland, spending hours in the countryside to satisfy his thirst for the beauty of nature.Between the ages of 15 and 20, Genta never stopped painting, and was frequently commissioned to paint portraits of people who appreciated his personal vision of their loved ones. However, his occupation as a watch designer, which he had begun in 1952, took up most of his time and for many years he devoted the greater part of his energies to the precise and accurate design of timepieces.In 1969, after having designed many of the best sellers of the Swiss watch industry - among them the Royal Oak of Audemars Piguet, the Constellation of Omega, the Nautilus of Patek Philippe, and the Seamaster of Omega - he founded his own brand, under his own name. For these creations, Genta surrounded himself with a team ofextraordinary watchmakers, stonesetters, engravers, and engineers, in order to manufacture the most complicated watches in the world. Matching technique with beauty, he produced precious perpetual calendars, minute-repeaters with crystal clear sound, and finally, the most complicated watch in the world, the grande sonnerie, which was to be the ultimate point in his career.In 1998, he sold his company and brand name, and straight away picked up his paint brushes with enthusiasm and passion.In November 2000, however, Gérald Genta returned to the world of horology, creating an entirely new line of watches under the name Gérald Charles. "My new watches, explains Genta, will show a new freedom of expression... They will be highly personalized and intended, above all, for the watch collector".The Gérald Charles line of watches includes timekeepers of two types: first, automatic chronographs made of steel; and second, simple watches with three hands, made of titanium.